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- It is a leading cause of disability worldwide.
And it's defined by the persistent feeling
of negative emotions.
I'm talking about depression.
Imagine feeling helpless, worthless, exhausted,
not even knowing why.
It is treatable,
but most cases go by unnoticed or misdiagnosed,
severely impacting your relationships, work,
and the ability to function as a normal human.
And in worst cases,
it can slowly push the person away towards suicide
without their loved one realising,
such as the case of Chester Bennington and Robin Williams.
Depression is caused by a combination of psychological,
biological, and social sources of distress
that alter neural circuits in your brain,
leading to behavioural and physical symptoms.
Those symptoms are translated into our outward appearance.
Like most of our facial expressions,
like how often we smile, blink, or give eye contact.
My research investigates the use of artificial intelligence
to detect symptoms of depression from one's face
to help doctors make a more informed decision.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning from examples
and its own experiences to make future decisions.
It recognises patterns and how they relate
by looking at large amounts of data.
But can it recognise patterns of depression
by just looking at us?
To check, I've prepared video footage
of around 120 participants,
each labelled by a psychologist
with a severity of depression.
Using an algorithm in AI, I trained a model
to learn symptoms of depression.
The model learns by breaking down video frames
into smaller sections,
such as areas of the mouth and the eyes.
It then learns characteristics within these areas,
links it back to the face,
and finally, it's depression severity.
By just looking at faces,
the model was able to predict severities of depression
with an accuracy that's way better than chance.
In the future, I want to investigate more techniques
used in AI to help improve model performance.
My experiment is a step closer to utilising
the most advanced techniques to help our doctors
with a future having less cases untreated or misdiagnosed.
Imagine your doctor routinely checking
for any symptoms of depression during a visit,
just like you get your blood pressure and weight checked.
Even better so, my technique can be used remotely
at the convenience of your home.
It is time to save ourselves and loved ones
from slipping away.
By looking through the lens of AI,
maybe we can understand.
Thank you.
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